I sat down with K. Michelle for an intimate conversation about her life and career. It got a bit deep when we discussed the subject of friendships gone awry, family not wanting the best for you, dealing with her insecurities and getting thru the dark days of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta. Like many celebrities, once you find fame and success, the true side of the people around you comes out and it’s usually not what you expected. While people don’t see the truth of a life in the entertainment business, the hard work, endless hours, rejection and heart break. What they do see is the glitz and glamour and it causes envy. So, the same people you thought would be cheering in your corner are the ones suing you, selling stories to the tabloids, extorting you and tying to tear you down. I spoke to K about these situations and here are a few excerpts of what she had to say:

When you become successful, people come out of no where claiming you and wanting something!

“I think I’m gong thru that more than anything now, just people popping up out of no where, it can be a lot. People wanting money, people trying to extort money, all kinds of stuff you know that goes on! I never thought that so many people would be so hurt and angry about my success. I mean I’ve had other artist and friends to tell me, that it would happen. But, to the extreme, the extent that people go, because they’re not happy with their life. And how they take their anger out, and the Blessings that God gave me they are upset about those. So, it’s difficult, yeah.”

“I can wake up every morning and there’s 10 new people upset with me and I didn’t do anything but sleep through the night. And it’s really not about me, it’s really about their insecurities and their un-happiness with their own life.”

“You realize, I’m not doing anything. Everybody wants to say, ‘Oh the artist changed,’ the truth is that the people around you changed. A missed phone call get’s, ‘Oh now you’re Hollywood.’ When a missed phone call was just that, a missed phone call. Everything you do is because you’re K. Michelle when really you’re just living and nothing has changed about you.”

What was the darkest point in your life and how did you overcome it?

” I would like to say, the darkest point in my life was probably like the first season of Love and Hip Hop. When people really didn’t understand me, people were calling me a liar, people were attacking me. And I had never been on a platform so big. Love and Hip Hop was huge and I never had to deal with so much judgement thrown my way and ridicule. And that, I could say was a very dark dark place for me.”

What is your greatest insecurity and how did you overcome it and learn to love yourself?

“I would say my greatest insecurity has always been my looks. Even when I was little, I like, blossomed. But, I was a little ugly duckling! So, that would be a major insecurity. So, you definitely have to know that you’re made how you’re made and you have to accept it. Um, me…I believe in alterations! Ha Ha! Or whatever. But, when you alter things it doesn’t change your insides. And it doesn’t change the insecurities within yourself so, I just feel like, it takes growth and it takes you. No one can tell you how pretty you are, or how this you are. If you don’t feel that way, it doesn’t happen. And I think a lot of times, women, we place our value in a man’s hands. And when they don’t act accordingly or when they don’t work out, our insecurities and self esteem seems to come to the forefront. And you can’t depend on anybody else to make you love yourself.”

You can catch all five parts of my interview with K. Michelle on my youtube channel HERE. Also, tune in to VH1 on Monday nights for her docu-series, K. Michelle: My Life. And pick up her new album, ‘Anybody want to buy a heart,’ in stores on December 9th!